May 25, 2005
School Picnics

So whatever happened to school picnics? You know, the end of the school year, all classes involved, high school picnic.  Have they gone the way of penny loafers, drive-in movies and fender skirts?  Memory doesn’t recall our daughters attending any “all students be there and bring a sack lunch we’ll supply the soda” spring time festivities at Junction.  Maybe the all school picnic was limited to small towns, like Cambridge, Illinois.   

At the home of the Vikings, “first in war, first in peace and last in the Cornbelt Conference” teachers and administrators loaded the entire student body, approximately 125 souls, freshman through seniors, onto school buses headed for Lake Story and the annual all school picnic.

Lake Story, approximately 30 miles away outside Galesburg, was the nearest pothole of any size on the prairies of Western Illinois.  It’s one of those mid-western Shangri-La’s where people fish for carp. 

The school picnic wasn’t any more memorable than the rest of high school, still I always looked forward to the occasion.  Occurring in the final week of the year the timing significantly reduced my chances of being expelled.  No teacher ever figured out a way to expel me from summer vacation.   The worst punishment one could receive at the school picnic was a sentence of solitary confinement on a parked school bus; not exactly “Bridge on the River Kwai” treatment but it certainly could put a crimp in the day’s fun. 

I was busted my freshmen year and decades later maintain it wasn’t my fault.  The previous day’s sport’s page featured an action picture of Chicago Cub Roy Smalley sliding into second and breaking up a double play.  The prose underneath the picture spoke glowingly about the hustle exhibited by Mr. Smalley.  The seniors were pummeling my freshmen class in softball. Since there weren’t enough players in a class to field a team some of the teachers filled in.  At second base for the seniors was Mr. Johnson, our math teacher, a man but one or two years from retirement.  With one out and me the runner on first, a ground ball was hit to the shortstop who underhanded a throw to Mr. Johnson for the force out.  I got there first and did indeed break up the double play. In the process I didn’t do a whole lot for Mr. Johnson.  That was the first time I’d ever heard a teacher swear. And you wouldn’t believe how upset our principal was over the same hustle that earned praise for Roy Smalley.  So the all school picnic my freshmen year found me doing time from noon to three alone on the school bus. 

Little did I realize a pattern was set.  My sophomore year there was all that unnecessary excitement about a cherry bomb exploding behind the bus drivers.  They were snoozing the day away in lawn chairs at the water’s edge.  I maintained my innocence since I was nowhere in the area a fact the principal said convinced him of my guilt.  It was back to solitary on the school bus.   

The junior year found me busted by the manager of the snack bar. Upset because I had been on his pin ball machine for over 3 hours on just a nickel he ratted me out when it was discovered gravity had been taken out of play by propping the pin balls back legs on ashtrays.  Trust me, you take gravity out of play on a pinball machine and the world is yours.  At least until you make the long walk to the school bus.  

I missed the school picnic my senior year.  Well actually the school principal said if I didn’t show it would be an excused absence, but if I did make the trip not to bother getting off the bus.  Sort of a mid-western offer I couldn’t refuse.  It just broke my heart when I heard it rained all day.